


Five times Angel and Wesley spent the night together

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, Hate Sex, Healing, M/M, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-29
Updated: 2008-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-05 03:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin





	Five times Angel and Wesley spent the night together

 

 

1.

It’s a long night of patrol drawing to a close. He doesn’t call it _patrol_ in front of the rest but he thinks about it that way because there’s still too much of Buffy written all over him not to.

Wesley is sitting on the passenger seat – L.A. seems calm and silent tonight and that worries Angel, like the hollow retreat before the undertow pulls you, drowns you. He can see Wesley changing by the second, in the hardening of the features, the swiftness of the movement, the kill. Angel remembers the man in a bow tie who used to stutter and sees that begin to wash away from Wesley.

Not all of it – L.A. has been calm and silent tonight, _and boring_ and Wes has fallen asleep a couple of times, like an amateur.

He snores lightly and Angel suddenly thinks he’s glad to have him on the team. That’s an odd confession. But no weirder than alliance than his with Cordelia. He is beginning to understand this is the city of _Lost Angels_ not because of the scum, the death, the wretched lives.

There’s still some time before dawn and Wesley wants to grab some breakfast.

`It’s when food tastes best,´ he says, because he is still too much of an Englishman not to be a poet. `After an all-nighter, and you will yourself to stay awake just a bit longer, those are the best breakfasts.´

`I wouldn’t know,´ Angel says and he is beginning to put a self-deprecating inflection to his vampire-with-a-soul whining. Even he knows when he’s gone over the top: `Anyway, it’d be supper for me.´

From the passenger seat Wesley stares at him, long and hard, something primeval kicking in.

`The second thing the Council teaches its Watchers is never, ever, ever feel pity for a vampire.´

And Angel is definitely glad to have Wes in his team because even if his brain and heart ever let him forget that Angel is vampire his skin would never.

`What’s the _first_ thing?´ He asks.

Wesley looks away.

`Never, ever, ever feel pity for a Slayer.´

Angel stares at him and suddenly sees so much of Giles in his closed expression. The important thing is not to learn the lesson, is how you come to _unlearn_ it in the end.

 

2.

Angel doesn’t remember much of that night – the sound of the ocean _outside_ not inside, not around; the smell of rust, rust pooling, eating at the cracks of his chains, and the cracks in his skin, weakness, and Wesley by his side, Wesley knowing exactly what to do, as he always do.

What he does remember: the taste of Wesley’s blood, thick, metallic, burning.

A vampire never forgets the taste.

 

3.

`What is this? Atonement?´ Angel asks while he pushes his shoulder to turn him around.

Wesley’s head bump into the concrete; Angel doesn’t care.

Wesley closes his eyes, listening to the sound of clothes rustling real close. Angel doesn’t breathe so he can’t feel his breath on the back of his neck, he feels lips without warning. A part of him wishes he would bite. Wesley guesses it’s part of who he is, that it’s always been there. For a moment he thinks about Buffy, and Faith, about every Slayer’s secret desire to bleed into oblivion.

Angel buries his fingernails into Wesley’s hips and Wesley welcomes the future bruises – He is sure Angel would see it as penance, but Angel is too simple.

`I can smell Lilah all over you,´ he says.

Wesley wishes they were face to face, so he could see him smile.

`Don’t pretend that doesn’t turn you on,´ Wesley groans.

Angel curses him but he doesn’t stop.

It’s a surprise when none of them leave afterwards. They stand in silence for a long time. Watching the moonlight reveal glimmers and dust in this derelict room.

`Where’s your little team of toy soldiers?´ Angel asks.

`They are fine on their own.´

`Why do you do it? You are never going to redeem yourself, no matter how many vampires or demons you kill.´

`This has nothing to do with redemption,´ Wesley replies.

Angel doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get him. Wesley is a Watcher first and everything else afterwards and in the grand scheme of things absolution rates very low. He learned that from a Watcher who broke all the rules without flinching and a teenage girl never bothered with them in the first place.

`It’s about getting the job done,´ he adds.

 

 

4.

`What are you watching?´

` _If_. It’s a good movie. It’s British.´

`What’s it about?´

Wesley looks up at him from the couch.

`Rebellion. Freedom.´

`Not the same thing.´

`No,´ Wes admits and Angel takes a seat on the other edge of the couch, as far from him as possible.

Half-way the movie –and Wes was right, Angel has to admit, it’s a good movie- Faith walks in the room, bored out of her skull and, without a word, fills the space between them on the couch, like a bridge, legs crossed, knee touching Angel’s leg, knee touching Wes’.

Angel looks at Wesley over Faith’s shoulder, feeling something very fragile twitter and twitch, like it was alive, like it was healing. Wesley doesn’t return the glance but Angel can tell he feels it on his skin.

And then Faith starts saying all the illegal things she would do to Malcolm McDowell and Angel almost laughs and Wesley almost thinks _we’re okay, we’re going to be fine_.

 

5.

Angel speaks, with coarse, thick-with-sex, weary voice.

`I don’t know if I could ever trust you the way I did, once.´

Because it has to be said.

`Trust is overrated,´ Wesley says nonchalantly, not thinking of Lilah but not _not thinking_ of her, too. He suddenly feels very old.

He finds his socks under the bed.

`No, it’s not,´ Angel says.

Wesley looks at him over his shoulder. If there’s anything left between them –apart from skin and regrets- is honesty.

`No, it’s not,´ he agrees.

He finishes buttoning his trousers and is about to stand up when Angel stops him with one hand on his shoulder.

He doesn’t say _stay_ but his fingers dig into Wesley’s shoulder-blade as if he had no intention of ever letting go, either.


End file.
